FAYETTEVILLE -- A prosecutor said Thursday that he had filed a second murder charge against the man accused of killing his cellmate last month, a deed he said was at the request of the victim.
Dekota James Harvey, 24, was in jail awaiting trial after he was charged with shooting Elizabeth Dawson to death earlier this year. A deputy found Harvey on Aug. 27 waiting at the door of his cell in the county jail and Luis Cobos-Cenobio lying on his back on the floor by his bunk bed.
Washington County Prosecuting Attorney Matt Durrett filed a capital-murder charge against Harvey.
His arraignment is set for Monday in Washington County Circuit Court. Capital murder is punishable by either life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.
Harvey told the deputy that he killed Cobos-Cenobio, 30, because his former cellmate wanted him to, according to a news release from the sheriff's office.
Officers switched Harvey's cell after he told a deputy he was afraid for his life. He specifically asked to move to Cobos-Cenobio's cell, the release said.
It appeared that Cobos-Cenobio was strangled. Officials found no weapons in the cell, said Kelly Cantrell, public information officer for the sheriff's office
Police arrested Harvey of Fayetteville in March after Dawson died from a single gunshot wound in her chest, according to police reports.
He pleaded innocent to capital murder in that case.
Police said Courtney Willie kicked Harvey, her boyfriend, out of the apartment before the March 14 shooting, and he had returned to gather his belongings.
Willie called 911 and said Harvey was "hanging around outside acting like a psychopath," according to police reports. She asked officers to get the key to the apartment on the 900 block of North Leverett Avenue from him.
While she was on the phone with dispatchers, she said Harvey was trying to get back into the apartment. A short time later, a woman was heard yelling in the background and then a gunshot, according to a probable-cause affidavit.
When officers arrived, they found Dawson shot in the chest, and Willie had a gunshot wound in her leg.
Cobos-Cenobio of Springdale was being held on a charge of attempted capital murder in a Nov. 11 police chase in Tontitown and Springdale in which shots were fired at police. No officers were injured.
The incident started after Washington County Cpl. Brett Thompson tried to stop a green Saturn traveling north on South Barrington Road near Steele Road in Tontitown. The area is south of U.S. 412 and west of Interstate 49.
Cobos-Cenobio stopped his car on Steele Road. When Thompson got out of his patrol vehicle, Cobos-Cenobio opened his car door and began shooting. Thompson returned fire, according to a news release from the sheriff's office.
Cobos-Cenobio fled, then stopped a short distance later and let a woman out of the car before taking off again.
A Springdale police officer spotted the car north of Lake Fayetteville. Cobos-Cenobio again shot at officers, according to a Springdale Police Department release.
Fayetteville police and Arkansas State Police troopers joined the chase, which wound into Fayetteville and back to Springdale before Cobos-Cenobio surrendered.
State Desk on 09/06/2019